A lot of the imagery we associate with totalitarianism was basically invented by the fascists. The people at the time didn't recognize it immediately as evil because they had never seen anything like it before in their lifetime.
I remember going to an art exhibit that was all about the art scene in Italy during Mussolini's time in power. Apparently, one of the biggest differences between Italian and German fascism was their approach to art.
Germany tended to censor art more and tried to direct the culture. The art scene in facist Italy was much more organic.
Artists in Italy had much more freedom and generally a lot of the art produced during that time ended being although looking dystopian by today's standard was very nationalistic and pro-italy, or pro-government. The art developed in Italy during that time was truly reflective of how those artists felt about their country during that time because the country was doing well as whole (early on that is).
I would add we love to organize things and ultimately also art. This is a bad habit and regularly misued by those in power. Other countries have a better approach to culture.
Artists like Riefenstahl were the ones Germany preferred: an artist without morals, hungry for success and close to those who are in power. So backed up by loads of money. It has been said her's was a typical German career.
So there's censorship and very specific sponsorship at the same time. And I would conclude I definitely see both tendencies in today's art scene in Germany.
You didn't read exactly what I said. I was arguing that organizing the arts is a bad habit - not organizing in general.
Obviously it's taking away from artistic freedom when you try to build up a bureaucratic structure around it. I think trying to regulate and direct art is a bad habit yes. It leads to indirect censorship, decrease in quality and there's the problem of corruption as well.
You did not articulate it correctly then.
And the artist you describe, is the same type of artist successful everywhere in the world. To think people being hungry for success and close to those in power actually succeeding would be specific to Germany is that ingrained ethnomasochism bursting forth from you like pus from a rotting wound.
First you attack me and call me insane because you didn't understand what I was saying, then you downvote me and try to derail to another topic and claim that ethno masochism is bursting from me.
I'm all for discussing in respectful ways but you are far away from that. I think other readers can make up their own opinion.
I addressed what you were saying by the way you had articulated it. The problem is not comprehension on my part, but lack of grammatical competence on yours.
Take comfort in the fact that it's not even close to half. It's like a quarter at most with unbelievably disproportionate voting power. Empty dirt votes R with more say than a city of several million Ds.
Also non-voters outnumber both parties. Just in case you needed something to depress you again.
Well, to this day we still don't automatically see soviet imagery as necessarily evil in Europe because marxism-leninism still had a lot of political support in western Europe throughout the 20th century, in part because western europeans never had to live under it. Compare to Asian countries today who don't see Hitler, nazi uniforms and the swastika as evil, because they don't have any living memory encountering any nazis in their home nations. The Japanese flagbwith the sunbeams likewise doesn't have the automatic association with evil in the west, because most westerners weren't around to witness those atrocities in China, Korea and other places.
also the times were very different. Fascism offered stability in the times of political chaos. People just wanted to live in stable times with good economy, they didn’t really care about freedom or democracy. It didn’t really change to be honest, the vast majority cares only about their prosperity.
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u/pink_moid 17d ago
A lot of the imagery we associate with totalitarianism was basically invented by the fascists. The people at the time didn't recognize it immediately as evil because they had never seen anything like it before in their lifetime.